Chapter Thirty-Five: Bulwark

Saturday, August 13, 1910

Sam and Crystal climbed into the wagon. They headed towards the Hines' residence. They unloaded the Sarah's luggage and waved as Emily's disappeared down the road towards downtown Eagle Creek. They sat down in the parlor.

Crystal shrugged. "Do you need to talk?"

"I do. You two have been lying to me."

"Excuse me? Young lady, we have always been truthful to you and everyone else for that matter."

Sarah looked to Sam. "Tell me about 'Cora'."

Sam shrugged. "Who's that?"

She turned to Crystal. "Ma'am?"

Crystal replied, "I can neither confirm nor deny that I have heard that word."

Sarah guffawed, "That's the exact same response I got from my father and Mr. Clementine and Mr. Grossman."

Crystal slowly shook her head. "No one's going to tell you."

Sam nodded. "Sweetheart, Crystal is not going to tell me either. You're going to have to accept that there is a time and a place for everything, including secrets."

"Fine. I supposed I'm just at that age when kids begin to question things. But Cora's not the reason why I wanted to see you. We need to talk about sex."

Sam began to stand. "I'll leave you two alone."

"No! Please, Preacher Sam, this involves you too. You're part of the problem."

Crystal titled her head. "Pardon?"

"Sir, please, I'm sorry to be so abrasive but I must."

Sam reluctantly sat back down.

Sarah rubbed her chin and then looked to Sam. "Your daughter, Pamela, is not a missionary in Africa, is she?"

Sam collapsed his shoulders and slowly shook his head, no.

"Where is she?"

Crystal spoke up, "That is a private family matter."

"No ma'am, it is not! The minute your husband stood in front of an audience and lied it ceased being a private family matter. Before anything positive can be accomplished I must have the truth about your daughter."

Crystal snapped, "You have no right to…."

"I have every right! I am an American who has the right of free speech. I am a Christian just like you and your husband which gives me the right to address and admonish you as an equal. And I am your friend so I have the right to receive an honest answer to my query no matter how uncomfortable that question might be for you."

"He is your preacher!"

"He is not the head of the church, Christ is!"

Sam barked, "Crystal! Stop arguing with her."

Crystal obeyed her husband and leaned back on the couch. "Fine."

Sam took a moment to collect his thoughts. "I'm not the head of the church and, young lady, I am your equal. Our daughter Pamela is an insane asylum in Cheyenne, Wyoming. We put there a few days after arriving in Eagle Creek. Your father helped make the arrangements. The church has been helping to pay for her treatment besides whatever money Crystal and I can spare."

Sarah asked, "And the elders' know?"

"Your father was the one who suggested the rouse of sending Pamela to Africa. Not too many people know what its like to live with a child who has a terribly malformed in mind. Michael said that the congregation would not understand and I still think he's right. They might blame me or Crystal for Pamela's pitiful state. Sweetheart, we tried to work with our daughter for years to no avail. She is in her own little world. When we see her she doesn't even know who we are."

Sarah nodded. "I understand your reasoning. I'd heard theories over the years. Rumors which said she was in a home for wayward girls or in prison. Look, Preacher Sam, if I was in your position… I dunno what I'd do. But sir, it's still a sin to lie. And, no matter how justified you feel, that sin is serving as a barrier to getting out the truth and as you're so fond of saying, 'The truth will set you free.'"

Sam wiped some sweat from his forehead. "You're right, Sarah, perfectly right. Tomorrow morning, I am going to stand in front of the congregation and confess my sin."

Crystal was taken aback. "You could lose your job!"

"And why should that stop me?"

Crystal didn't know how to respond.

"Crystal, I can't do this any more. I can't live with myself. I believe that God bless those who tell the truth. After I say what I need to say if I lose my job… we won't starve. I'll dig ditches if that's what it takes to keep you in a safe, comfortable home but I will retain my faith in the eldership and the membership of Eagle Creek Memorial Church and I will rest on their wisdom and mercy. And if I, for a second, entertain the notion of not being truthful with people in order to keep myself employed then I have no business being a preacher of the Gospel."

Crystal dabbed away some tears. "You're right. I trust you. I trust God."

Sarah gave a warm smile.

Sarah said, "Thank you, sir, ma'am. I'm sure you're wondering what that has to do with my opening statement that we need to talk about intimacy."

Sam began to stand up.

Crystal pointed for him to sit back down; he complied. Sarah scratched her chin. "Mrs. Hines, you were born in 1865?"

Crystal rolled her eyes. "A long, long time ago. We still had dinosaurs."

Sarah shrugged. "What I mean is, when you were my age it was 1881."

Crystal nodded. "Go on."

"When you were my age, you, like me and Emily and Lynn, were confused about the pursuit of love."

"Of course."

"And you married Sam at nineteen, so you spent three additional years trying to figure out men."

"Kiddo, I'm forty-five and I still don't have men figured out."

Sam shrugged. "At times I don't understand Crystal."

Sarah shook her head. "Nor would I expect you to; sir, you're not a woman. You're a man. You feel things once, maybe twice and then they're gone. Emotions like guilt, anger, pride are not necessarily yokes like they are for us women."

Sam agreed with her.

Sarah continued, "I just spent a week with girls who in a few years will be sixteen. As they mature they will face the same struggles that I face, and they might even make the same mistakes."

Crystal shrugged. "That's all part of growing up."

"Why? Ma'am, why does it have to be all just a part of growing up? I believe we can change things." She turned to Sam: "Does the Bible say something about younger women being taught by older women?"

Sam nodded. "Titus 2:3-5 The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed."

"How come we don't do that? The Bible says pray, so we pray. It says sing, so we sing. Why don't the older women teach the younger women all of those things?"

Sam looked to Crystal.

Crystal replied, "We do… I mean, mothers are supposed to teach their daughters about sensuality and emotions, and a lot more."

Sarah leaned in: "But they usually don't."

Crystal shrugged. "That's true. We wouldn't have half as many problems if mothers did talk to their daughters about such matters."

Sarah bobbed her head. "I agree. My mother and I are close but we hardly ever talk about intimacy. And that passage says 'aged women' meaning a plurality."

"Things don't change over night."

"Actually, Mrs. Hines, they do. They change faster than they've ever changed before and only half as fast as they'll change when those little girls are sixteen, like me. But today, older women don't train younger women. They don't talk to us; they talk at us or, even worse, they talk about us. 'Kids these days are so disrespectful' they say. Or, 'She shouldn't dress so provocatively but then again if I had her body…."

Crystal nodded. "That's exactly what they say. Sarah, sweetie, I've always told you and Lynn and Emily that if you need to confide in someone then I'm here for you."

"I realize that ma'am, and I am appreciative, but I usually only talk to you after the problem has occurred not before hand. I don't get much in the way of sound, experience based wisdom from my mother or you for that matter."

"Darling, it was the same when I was your size."

"I guessed as much, however, we can change that equation if we are determined to do so. Consider this, when I was in sixth grade, Nurse Westbrook came over one afternoon to school and talked to us girls about menstrual cycles."

Sam began to stand up: "I'll leave you two alone."

"Sit!"

Sam reluctantly returned to his chair.

"As I was saying, the boys were given an extra hour of recess so we could not be disturbed. Nurse Westbrook brought a chart and told us about the wondrous journey of the egg from the fallopian tube to the uterus."

Sam cleared his throat. "I could use some coffee about now."

"Sam… sit."

Sarah and Crystal giggled.

"Continuing, she explained the entire process and, of course, she discussed basic feminine hygiene."

Crystal trilled her lips. "That's more than I got in school. My mother walked me down to the library, gave me a book and then left. A couple of hours later she returned. I put the book back on the shelf and we never discussed the matter again."

Sarah shrugged. "My mother found out from a friend. Her mother, eventually, had a brief discussion with her… a year after she started."

"That's the way people did things back then."

"But they do them differently now and you know why, because Nurse Maude Westbrook decided that the information on feminine hygiene was too important to be kept under lock and key. She took initiative and broke down that barrier. Since then, every girl at Eagle Creek School hears that same lecture when she enters sixth grade."

"Well thank heavens for her."

"Indeed. She decided to step over the lines of comfort and she acted with boldness which makes her a fine example of what womanhood should be."

"Maude's amazing."

"Wrong. Nurse Westbrook, ma'am, is simply doing her job. She receives an annual stipend from the city to help spread awareness of public health issues. I know this because my father used to be a city councilman and I attended a couple of the meetings. Nurse Westbrook has done her job, nothing more, nothing less. I say that not to malign her but to put her actions in their proper context. She has a charge from the elected representatives of Eagle Creek. Mrs. Hines, you and the other ladies at Eagle Creek Memorial Church have a charge from God and there is no legitimate excuse for not fulfilling it.

May I tell you something in complete confidence?"

Sam nodded. "Always."

Sarah bit her lower lip. "Forgive me for gossiping but a couple of months ago Emily was visiting our friend Jan in Helena. Jan has an indoor pool."

Sam asked, "Indoor pool?"

The only one in a private residence in Montana. Jan's father owns a bank. Anyway, Jan is not a church goer, neither is her best friend, Karen. One day, while they were swimming, Emily's and Jan's and Karen's boyfriends showed up. And a few minutes later a whole car load of boys showed up. Then Karen brought out some liquor bottles.

Emily, bless her heart, did leave the situation. She got out of the pool and dried herself off then she saw Karen was kissing Jan's boyfriend. Jan was kissing Karen's boyfriend. And then Karen began kissing Jeff, Emily's boyfriend."

Crystal was heartbroken. "That poor kid."

"Emily went upstairs and called me when I was at Lynn's house. She explained about the booze and the girlfriend swapping and then she asked me what to do. I advised her," Sarah choked up. "I advised her if she really loved Jeff she should go back to the party and be there for him so he does not… end up with Karen."

Sam shook his head. "Why would you tell her to do such a foolish thing?"

Crystal said, "I know why, Sarah, I know why. When I was your age," she shook her head. "I'd end up telling her the same thing."

Sam was aghast. "You wouldn't tell a sixteen-year-old girl to return to a mixed bathing, drinking party just to keep a boyfriend!"

"I wouldn't now because I am a forty-five-year-old woman but when I was a stupid, immature, naïve sixteen-year-old girl that is precisely what I would have said to her."

Sam was riled: "I don't understand that."

Crystal put a hand on his knee. "You can't understand that because you've never been a sixteen-year-old girl. Boyfriends are incredibly important at this age. Sixteen-year-old girls are fragile and emotionally vulnerable and don't pretend you didn't know that when you were a sixteen-year-old boy."

Sam sighed. "Of course I knew that. However, I never did anything untoward."

"Dearest, you were a perfect gentleman all through our courtship and that is one of the reasons why I was so in love with you and I remain so today; that being said, when you're sixteen a boyfriend is everything! And if you have to bend a couple of rules or break all Ten Commandments you do it! That's the nature of being that age."

Sam snapped, "They should not break commandments to secure a boyfriend!"

"I know that. They know that but confounded," Crystal shook her head. "We do it anyway!"

Crystal took a moment to think. "Sam, my goodness, I love you so much. If we knew each other at sixteen and I saw you kissing another girl, then heaven forgive me, but I would one to jump and that pool and protect you from yourself."

"You'd do that?"

"I'd do it for me not because of who you are but because of what you are my ticket out of my mother's house and in to your bed. I would treat you as a piece of property which rightfully belongs to me and me alone."

Sarah spoke up, "And no one ever tells us to behave differently."

Sam glared at her. "I tell you to behave differently every Sunday!"

Sarah yelled, "Well we're not listening!"

Sam sank in his chair.

Sarah spoke softly, "Preacher Sam, please, I know you tell us to behave differently every Sunday but it's just not enough. If a thirty minute sermon once a week could do it then there would never be any problems at church. Learning morality, learning basic Christian living is a continual process. You've read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation but I know for a fact you still read every single day. Why?"

"Because there is always something new to learn. There is always a new lesson or a new method or a new way to direct my thinking."

"And that's why anyone reads their Bible on a daily basis. They need more than a thirty minute sermon. Preacher Sam, Mrs. Hines, we, I need more than a thirty minute sermon. I need more than my mother's brief quips about avoiding 'monkey business' before I get a ring. I need older women, the ones who already bare the scars of the emotional battlefield, to give me strength and hope for the journey. I need them to say that the world won't end if…" Sarah stammered, "I need them to say the world won't end if Simon never loves me. I need them to tell me I'm beautiful because God says I'm beautiful. I need them to tell me that they made mistakes when they were my age. I need their prayers. I need their guidance. I need their obligation to tell me that I am special because I live in a world which tells me every single day that I'm not and as time progresses that message is only going to get louder.

Right now there are new technologies coming into our little prairie life. Just think about the innovation I've seen in my short lifetime: automobiles, telephones, magazines, cheap, tawdry novels, movies, records, when you were my age you didn't have any of these mediums."

Sam chuckled, "That made little difference young lady, people still sinned."

"But people didn't have corporations showing them how to sin for profit."

Sam swished his mouth. "That's true."

"All of this technological change will have a dangerous affect on everyone in terms of sliding moral standards."

Sam shook his head. "No. No not everyone. Christians will be immune from worldly notions."

"Will they? This new morality is everywhere, there's no escaping it. Just because our town doesn't have a tavern or a burlesque house does not mean Eagle Creek is a sunny haven from vice. And if mothers are misled into thinking that all it takes is a few vague admonitions to their daughters about chastity to keep them pure then we are in serious, serious trouble. Most girls hear that boys are wolves and good girls are the hapless sheep: innocent, wholesome and incapable of carnal thoughts, yet I am a good girl and I have carnal thoughts like your wife did when she was sixteen."

Crystal popped her lips. "Ohhhh, yessss."

"But in 1910 we have romance novels advising us that we can fulfill our carnal lusts and get away with it. The boys have French Postcards: we have Romero the Pirate: A Tale of Forbidden Passions, a steamy novel which every woman in this town read."

Sam shook his head. "Not every woman."

He looked to Crystal who nervously shifted her eyes. "It was research purposes only."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Is that why you said I should get a cobra tattoo?"

"We'll talk later, Sarah, please continue."

"The girls I taught at camp were about ten. That means in 1916, they'll be my age. By that time, all of those bad things in the media will have increased tremendously, maybe doubled. Movies will become more risqué in order to sell tickets. Vogue will print more about salacious material to sell magazines. Music will be bawdier. There'll be sequels to Romero the Pirate."

Crystal said excitedly, "You mean like, if he met a lady pirate and they had an adventure in Mexico?"

Sam cleared his throat.

Sarah snickered, "As I saying, lewdness will become so rampant that after a while, people won't be able to tell the difference between right and wrong. That's the world of 1916. It will be worse in 1956 and worse still in 2006. At some point, people will be taught not that morality doesn't exist they will be taught that it doesn't even matter; that it’s a construct of a forgotten era of bonnets and horse drawn carriages or its just a social condition utterly pliable and subject to the whims and standards of wherever you might be at the time. Something must be done, now, today if we hope to retain none but a fraction of the young girls in our fellowship, and Sam, I simply can't do because I'm a girl myself who gave my best friend the worse advice she could possibly hear because I could not see beyond the moment.

One sermon, no matter how forceful or well intentioned is not going to do it. Morality, especially in our new world, must be a continual message and the best teachers are those who have already walked a mile in my shoes. If no one picks up the torch, raises the standard and builds a bulwark to ebb this rising tide of commercial moral indifference then our church, our town, our nation will be engulfed in a flashflood of anarchy, ambiguity and nihilism. And if won't end with morality, this despair will fraction every aspect of decent behavior. Inexcusable violence will excused, honesty will be an expectation, instead of praying to God people will say 'I am god' and greed will be interpreted as Divine blessings because people will either be ignorant of the difference or they flat out won't care that there is a difference.

If older women don't tell younger women that sensuality and emotions are inexorably linked because God fashioned them to be that way then they will assume that it is all for naught and life has no value other than eat, drink and be merry."

Sam shook his head. "I can't imagine a world like that."

"Preacher Sam, like a rumbling thunderstorm, that world is coming whether you like it or not."

Sam looked away. "Then how on Earth are we to stop it?"

Sarah whispered, "By not looking on Earth for a solution but looking to God."

Sam snickered, "That was supposed to be my line, you know."

Sarah shrugged. "I realize that preacher, but you needed to hear it from someone else."

Sam took a moment to think. "So, older women need to teach younger women about… men and emotions?"

Sarah nodded. "And family and children and charity and chastity and hospitality and modesty and whatever else the Bible says we need to know."

Sam rubbed his chin. "Finding teachers is going to be a challenge."

"I'll do it." Crystal said with a raised hand. "I'll teach the girls. As a matter of fact, let's do it this way."

Crystal explained her plan. Sam took careful notes. Sarah helped her fine tune the ideas acting as a sounding board. When exhaustion finally caught up with the three they went right to sleep, confident that they were on a new, exciting journey.